2010-08-02

Homemade Settlers of Catan - 02 Molds

1-Sculpting | 2-Molds | 3-Casting | 4-Painting |5-Packaging | 6-FinishesOnce I had sculpted some clay hexagons I decided to try my luck at creating some negative molds. I used AeroMarine Casting Resin and it did a fantastic job. Just mix the two parts 10:1 ratio (weight) and pour over the clay. I measured it the first time and just used it as a guide as how purple to make the mix on the other pours. Also the purple liquid smelled amazing and always made me very hungry... to bad it would land me in the hospital if I drank it. Note to manufacturers I'm all for masking toxic fumes but let's not go as far as to make people want to consume it either.

Casting Hexes

Casting Settlements/Roads/Cities/Etc using Legos!!

The mix would cure at different times depending on how purple or white it was. The only thing you need to know is don't worry too much about what you use to hold the mold. Silicone only sticks to silicone. Since the casting resin isn't cheap I try to create a mold that is tight around the object I'm capturing. I found LEGOs
to work great for this!It did such a great job that the final molds actually captured my fingerprints! Which I kinda of wished I could remove but at the same time it's just proof a human made it instead of a machine. Once I had the molds in place it was time to start casting!

The mold itself (purple stuff) was silicone. The beauty of silicone is that nothing sticks to it except silicone. The cast was a 2 part plastic resin. I used no release agent and was able to make my dozens of duplicates easily. I've heard using a release agent allows one to get 300+ copies from 1 mold!

Generally the mold is flexible and can handle the in's and out's of the sculptures. I would recommend thinking about the thickness of the silicone surround around the piece. If it is too thick (1") it becomes too rigid to bend and stretch. Most of my molds had silicone at about 1/4" to 1/2" and I could pull/stretch/deform the mold to release the cast easily.

One area I remember being challenging was the forest hex where 3 trees touched forming an opening in between them. The silicone poured in between them and under the branches forming a plug shaped piece.